How to Create a Usable Volunteer Hours Sheet to Log Time

Creating a volunteer hour log is pretty straight forward, however, if you want to make sure your volunteers actually track hours, you have to be a little more diligent.

What should be on your form?

I would start by asking the following questions:

What type of data do you actually need to collect? Collecting too much can be overwhelming for your volunteers, however collecting too little won't be helpful. At the very least, collect date, hours, and activity. If your activity can be one of a specific type of fields, that'd be ideal.

How often do you need to collect it? Is it at least 7 days after they volunteer? or is at the end of 3 months or 6 months? This will determine if you should have it be a single sheet or a large form where they can put in multiple hours at once.

How will you collate the data? The point of tracking hours isn't just for fun! Someone will need to add the totals up. Will you do that individually? or will you have the volunteer total it up themselves?

Why use paper when you can go digital? There are definitely pros and cons to using a digital time tracking system, but if you go with paper this day and age, make sure you have at least evaluated the digital options.

What software do you use to create the form?

After you've answered those questions, there are many ways to actually create the form. I'd personally recommend using Google Spreadsheet simply for maintenance. This allows others to modify it and change it if you ever leave. If you use something complicated, like Photoshop or Word, some people just might not have that software. If you do decide to create it with Google Spreadsheet, just remember you can do the following:

Print as a PDF without gridlines

Add images for your organization

Add borders around cells to make a table

Print it in portrait mode to maximize the horizontal space

Examples of the form

There are so many volunteer templates out there of all different shapes and sizes. We've gone through and downloaded 50 of them so you can quickly scroll them and choose one that you like. Just add your email below and we'll send it to you! Good luck!